Aristotle METAPHYSICA Book 2 Part 3

On lectures and their audiences

1.
The effect which lectures produce on a hearer depends on his habits;
for we demand the language we are accustomed to, and that which is
different from this seems not in keeping but somewhat unintelligible
and foreign because of its unwontedness. For it is the customary that
is intelligible. The force of habit is shown by the laws, in which
the legendary and childish elements prevail over our knowledge about
them, owing to habit. Thus some people do not listen to a speaker
unless he speaks mathematically, others unless he gives instances,
while others expect him to cite a poet as witness. And some want to
have everything done accurately, while others are annoyed by accuracy,
either because they cannot follow the connexion of thought or because
they regard it as pettifoggery. For accuracy has something of this
character, so that as in trade so in argument some people think it
mean. Hence one must be already trained to know how to take each sort
of argument, since it is absurd to seek at the same time knowledge
and the way of attaining knowledge; and it is not easy to get even
one of the two.

2.
The minute accuracy of mathematics is not to be demanded in all cases,
but only in the case of things which have no matter.
Hence method
is not that of natural science; for presumably the whole of nature
has matter. Hence we must inquire first what nature is: for thus we
shall also see what natural science treats of (and whether it belongs
to one science or to more to investigate the causes and the principles
of things).